STUDIES SURVEYING 263 



of this exacting age is thought accomplished. I have 

 gained great, though undeserved, credit here and no little 

 help, by measuring the heights of the mountains and keeping 

 up a good meteorological register. The Surveyor- General, 

 who spent last season here, would tell no one what he was 

 after; and the poor people who had shown him much kind- 

 ness are very much disgusted. I keep no secrets, and if I 

 cannot (and do not wish to) measure with the accuracy of 

 a Survej^or, I do so sufficiently accurately for all practical 

 purposes and at a very little outlay of time. With a pocket 

 sextant and compass, lent me by the Deputy Surveyor- 

 General (Capt. Thuillier, a most excellent fellow), I worked 

 out in two hours the height of Kinchin from this place and 

 made it 28,000 feet. Sinchul I have worked barometrically 

 with no trouble at all, and make it 8653. Tonglo Mr. 

 Miiller and I have just worked out from the observations 

 I took in May, and it is 10,009 feet. 



So also a little earlier : 



I have only seen the sun thrice this month so as to get 

 observations. The time here was f of an hour out, and my 

 watch which you gave me before I went with Ross is the only 

 good time-keeper here, so that all sorts of people send to me 

 for the time. I spent one day furbishing up my surveying 

 lore, so as to be ready for the Terrae incognitae, but I am 

 wretchedly off for instruments. 



Thus the rainy summer months wore away in busy employ- 

 ment, with alternate hopes and fears about the great journey 

 to the snows in October. His plan, if this were permitted, 

 was to spend a month there, and then, if at all successful, 

 return again in May, 



for I am sure [he writes on August 80] it will be better to work 

 one part of the Himalaya well, from the Terai up to the 

 Snow, than to proceed north-west towards the passes west 

 of Nepaul, now so much better known [accepting the invita- 

 tion of Major Thoresby, the Nepaulese Resident]. This, too, 

 is the middle of the range, it contains the highest mountain, 

 and so evidently differs in the Geographical Distribution of 

 its Vegetation, from what lies East and West, that it presents 



